When Smith returned home, the two smoked the drugs but were interrupted when Cheary said he heard a “thump” upstairs.

Sophia was on the ground covered in vomit, Cheary said.

She wasn’t breathing. Cheary stripped her down and placed her body under running water. Sophia didn’t wake up.

After reaching out to Cheary’s mother for help, they called 911. Paramedics arrived within minutes.

Tulare County firefighter and part-time EMT, David Cornett, testified that he remembered seeing the girl's small body lying on the ground while firefighters attempted to find the child’s pulse. It was faint.

He was with the child in the ambulance and was the first to notice a small puddle of blood under Sophia.

Medical experts found lacerations and bleeding around Sophia’s rectum.

The firefighter said he never forgot the scene.

“To be honest, my daughter was the same age at the time,” he said. “Out of the 16 years [as a first responder], I took it home. I typically don’t and it’s stayed with me since.”

Justice for Baby Sophia

Sophia later died at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to her head.

Cheary was arrested on June 7, 2011. He sat behind bars for five years and five months waiting for Monday’s decision. He dressed in a suit, rarely made eye contact with jurors and talked freely to his lawyers.

He showed little reaction as the clerk read the verdict Monday afternoon. He was quickly escorted by deputies back to his cell.

Throughout the trial, Cheary and his defense attorneys maintained his innocence.

During an interrogation, Cheary told detectives he found Sophia covered in feces and vomit. The defense argued that Sophia’s injuries were caused by an undiagnosed clotting disorder.

Neuropathologist Hannes Vogel was one of the first to classify the child’s injuries as consistent with ‘inflicted’ and ‘non-accidental’ trauma.

“There is no way on God’s green Earth this pattern of injury could be explained by a clotting disorder,” the doctor said.

More than 10 medical experts testified that Sophia’s death was caused by extreme force. One likened it to falling off a three-story building.

Although doctors couldn’t definitively say whether the girl had been sexually assaulted. Jurors believed she had been tortured and raped.

Inside the courtroom, Sophia’s family gasped and cried when the verdict was read.

After a five-week trial, attorneys finished closing arguments late last week.

For the family of Sophia, the verdict comes as a relief.

Coronado said after five years of waiting, there is finally justice for Sophia.

“It’s terrible what he did,” he said. “Terrible.”

The family will now wait for the second phase of the trial –– the penalty phase.

“Obviously we’re pleased with the jury’s verdict,” said District Attorney Tim Ward. “The proceedings are not over. We are ready to present the evidence we have prepared for the next phase.”

The penalty phase will start at 10 a.m. on Wednesday in Department 5 of the Visalia Courthouse. Prosecutors are hoping a jury will see fit to send Cheary to death row at San Quentin. The defense will try to spare Cheary’s life.